Is Marquette A Lacrosse School Now?

On Monday, Inside Lacrosse released their brand new Top 20 media poll.  As a result of their weekend wins against Detroit and Ohio State moving them to 5-0 on the season, Marquette moved up to #13 in the country.  This led me to a question.

Is Marquette a lacrosse school now?  Is lacrosse the sport that Marquette is best known for now?

I mean, let's look at how this school year has shaken out so far:

• Women's soccer missed the NCAA tournament for the first time in seven years and didn't win the Big East regular season title for the first time in six years, and didn't win the conference tournament for the first time in three years.
• Men's soccer had a school shutout record, but finished 8-6-4 and did not make the NCAA tournament after being picked to win the Big East at the start of the season.
• Women's volleyball made their fourth straight NCAA tournament appearance under first year head coach Ryan Theis, but Autumn Bailey and Nele Barber have since left the program, leaving Marquette with only 30% of their offense returning for next season.
• Women's basketball lost 10 straight games to start the Big East schedule en route to a regular season record of 8-21.
• Men's basketball is currently undergoing the worst season that the program has seen since 1990-91 with a record of 11-17 heading into tonight's game against St. John's.
• Women's lacrosse has started the season a not completely surprising 1-3.

Meanwhile, Joe Amplo and his Golden Eagles are riding high on a program record five game winning streak and the best start in program history.  With Jacksonville and Mercer coming up this weekend, it's completely believable that MU could open up Big East play against Georgetown with a record of 7-0.  It's somehow not insane to think that there's an outside chance that Marquette could head to South Bend on April 7th to face current #3 Notre Dame with a record of 11-0 next to their name on the scoresheet.

On top of all of that, on January 29th, Marquette President Dr. Michael Lovell announced plans to construct an on-campus fieldhouse in order for lacrosse to be able to both practice on a full field year round as well as host games at any point in the season.  Not only is men's lacrosse the most successful team on campus this season, they're also the team that's getting the most attention from the university's administration, too.

There's no denying it.  Marquette is a lacrosse school now.